July 31, 2007

Yesterday I posted about the prediction in India that hydrogen energy will be a viable alternative to fossil fuels for its transportation sector by 2020. In a story about efforts to develop hydrogen options, there are more glowing predictions for hydrogen fuel's potential...

Honda, BMW and General Motors Corp. report they are developing vehicles that will run on hydrogen, the simplest, lightest and most abundant of elements.

GM predicts it could have cleanburning, hydrogenpowered fuel cell vehicles on the road within the next five or six years. The company estimates that fuel cell propulsion is about twice as efficient as that of an internal combustion engine.

Earlier this year BMW presented its new hydrogen vehicle, the Hydrogen 7, as part of the company's global clean energy promotional campaign.

Not everybody has a rosy view though...

Other major automakers do not predict mass production of hydrogen vehicles until at least a decade from now, citing the difficulty and cost of producing, storing and transporting the element in either its gaseous or liquid form.

But even in that arena, some are decidedly bullish on the possibilities...

The FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership, made up of the U.S. Department of Energy along with BP America, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, Shell Hydrogen LLC and a council of three major automakers, believes that by 2010 it can create the national hydrogen fuel infrastructure needed to support fuel cell vehicles.

"India will be ready with Hydrogen fuel for its transport sector as a major alternative to fossil fuels by 2020, according to scientists.

Hydrogen will be ready in terms of production, storage and supply chain to be used in the transport sector by the end of the next decade, they said.

Various laboratories in the country are developing different technologies of production, storage and transportation and "we are sure that by 2020, India can use hydrogen as an alternative fuel," Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Director S Banerjee said."

July 18, 2007

Refrigerators use 14 percent of a home’s electricity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Today’s most efficient 20-cubic-foot refrigerators use 47 percent less
electricity than 1993 models. Beware of these resource hogs:

side-by-side refrigerator/freezers use 10 percent more electricity than freezer-on-top models;

through-the-door water and ice dispensers and automatic icemakers can increase electricity use by up to 20 percent; and

automatic defrost models can use up to 40 percent more energy than manual defrost models,

July 16, 2007

Consider a whole-house fan. Because some nights are cool, but have
no breeze, you may benefit from using a whole-house fan to force cool air through your home. A whole-house fan is permanently installed in your attic and draws cooler air into your home and forces warmed
air out through the attic vents.

The biggest reason? The burning of high-carbon coal to produce cheap electricity.

•
Wyoming’s coal-fired power plants produce more carbon dioxide in just
eight hours than the power generators of more populous Vermont do in a year.

•
Texas, the leader in emitting this greenhouse gas, cranks out more than the next
two biggest producers combined, California and Pennsylvania, which together have
twice Texas’ population.

• In sparsely populated Alaska, the carbon dioxide produced per person
by all the flying and driving is six times the per capita amount generated by
travelers
in New York state.

The article points out that, for example, Wyoming "exports" a large amount of the electricity it generates through coal, so some of Wyoming's poor performance on emissions can be attributed to energy consumption in other states. Still...

On a per-person basis, Wyoming spews more carbon dioxide than any other state
or any other country: 276,000 pounds of it per capita a year, thanks to burning
coal, which provides nearly all of the state’s electrical power.

Yet, just next door to the west, Idaho emits the least carbon dioxide per
person, less than 23,000 pounds a year. Idaho forbids coal power plants.
It relies
mostly on non-polluting hydroelectric power from its rivers.

Texas, where coal barely edges out cleaner natural gas as the top power source,
belches almost 1-1/2 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide yearly. That’s
more than every nation in the world except six: The United States, China,
Russia, Japan, India and Germany.

Of course, Texas is a very populous state. North Dakota isn’t, but its
power plants crank out 68 percent more carbon dioxide than New Jersey, which
has 13 times North Dakota’s residents.

And while Californians have cut their per-person carbon dioxide emissions
by 11 percent from 1990 to 2003, Nebraskans have increased their per capita
emissions
by 16 percent over the same time frame.

June 13, 2007

Let's say you've bought an old diesel Mercedes so you can
run it on biofuels. And let's say you feel so good about it that you slap a
bumper sticker on your car that says, "Powered by 100% vegetable oil."
Now let's say your bumper sticker gets noticed by state Department of Revenue inspectors
who are inspecting RVs for illegal (i.e., untaxed) fuel.

What do your efforts to use alternative fuels net you? A
big fat fine.

So last fall [Bob Teixeira]
spent $1,200 to convert his 1981 diesel Mercedes to run on vegetable oil. He
bought soybean oil in 5-gallon jugs at Costco, spending about 30 percent more
than diesel would cost.

His reward, from a state that heavily promotes
alternative fuels: a $1,000 fine last month for not paying motor fuel taxes.

He's been told to expect another $1,000 fine from the
federal government.

And to legally use veggie oil, state officials told him,
he would have to first post a $2,500 bond.

On the one hand, I look at this and think that's
completely out of whack. Talk about a disincentive to convert to alternative
fuels. On the other hand, I look at it and think, well, fuel is fuel. Why
should alternative fuels be exempt?

What do you think? Should alternative fuels be taxed? Or
should the government encourage their use by letting it slide?

April 01, 2007

Want to reduce your negative impact on the world around you? Want to fight global warming with your everyday choices? A good place to start is a new article on the Time Magazine site spotlighting 51 Ways to Save the Environment.